Beneath a Golden Veil

by Melanie Dobson

  Sing Ye had come with her and Isaac to the cottage but hadn’t stayed with them. Nicolas took her to visit a friend who lived on a rancho outside of town. He feared backlash from today’s trial, and he wanted to keep his wife safe. Aunt Emeline would be pleased, knowing how much Nicolas cared for Sing Ye.

  And her aunt would be praying all night if she knew Victor was in town.

  Nicolas had asked her and Isaac to join them on the rancho, but she’d said she thought it best to wait here for Stephan and Alden, to see if they needed further assistance with hiding Persila. She would never forgive herself if something happened to Sing Ye because of her past or her current work.

  Isaac was sprawled out on the woven rug below her, one of Aunt Emeline’s books clasped in his hands. It was too dark to continue reading, but he was still trying to make out the words in the faint promise of starlight.

  Aunt Emeline would be so pleased, knowing this Negro boy was in her home, reading her books.

  Isaac glanced up at her. “Do you smell smoke?”

  She sniffed. There was a faint scent of smoke in the air, but Sacramentans often disregarded the ban on fires during the dry summer months. Strange that Rodney wasn’t as compelled to stop those who ignored this law as he was to enforce the one about runaway slaves.

  “Someone must be burning trash,” she said.

  He reluctantly closed the book, resigned it seemed to the loss of light. “How many books are in this house?”

  “At least twenty.”

  He sighed. “I wish I could read every one.”

  “I’m sure Sing Ye would let you borrow any of them,” she said. “You can read my books back at the hotel too.”

  He could have all of them after she left for Vancouver Island.

  “I will take good care of them.”

  “Does Mr. Payne know you can read?” she asked.

  “Of course.”

  “I don’t mean Alden—” She hesitated. It seemed odd to use the man’s first name. “I mean Alden’s father. Master Payne.”

  “That Master Payne doesn’t know me at all.”

  “Did your mama teach you to read?”

  “No,” Isaac said. “She left right after I was born.”

  Isabelle’s heart twisted. She couldn’t imagine leaving her son.

  “My mistress said she took off with another slave.”

  She considered his words in the darkness. How sad it must be for a child to learn his mother ran away. Devastating. “I’m sorry that your mama left you.”

  “She didn’t leave me, Miss Labrie. She left slavery.”

  “Of course,” Isabelle said. And how could she blame the woman? Her heart probably ripped in two, leaving her child in search of freedom. Perhaps she had escaped with her husband. Perhaps Isaac’s parents were planning to come back one day to rescue their son.

  “Master said my mama was a princess.”

  “I’m sure she loved you very much.”

  “I would have loved her too.” He paused. “My nursemaid said she would be proud of me, learning how to read and play piano.”

  “Any mother would be proud to have you as her son.”

  “One day, I’m going to find her. And I’m going to take care of her too.”

  “Isaac,”—she straightened her skirt—“you said your mistress told you that your mother ran away.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Mr. Payne hadn’t mentioned a wife, but after her experience with Ross, she knew it was quite possible that he too had left a family behind in Virginia.

  “Is Alden married?” she asked.

  “No, ma’am, but a woman on our ship sure wanted to marry him.”

  When Isabelle breathed the air again, the smoke seemed heavier. Acrid. Then the clang of the town’s fire bells resonated through the room.

  She jumped up from her seat, her heart clanging with the bells. The last time Sacramento City caught fire, it took almost every building with it.

  She raced over to the window and saw the center of town glowing an eerie orange. She had to return to the hotel before the flames reached K Street and destroyed everything inside, including Aunt Emeline’s box.

  Her body trembled at the thought of discovering Victor below, but she couldn’t let her fear stop her from saving Aunt Emeline’s gift and the money she needed to start over. In the chaos, the smoke, she could slip back into the city and rescue her things without Victor seeing her. Then she would return to this cottage.

  She knelt down beside Isaac. It would be too risky to take him down near the fire. She needed to move swiftly, through the alleyways to avoid the blaze and the man who wanted to destroy her as well.

  “I need you to stay here and watch the house,” she told him.

  “Like I did with the hotel?”

  “Exactly. The fire shouldn’t come this way, but if it does”—she pointed east—“follow this street outside town, to the floral gardens. I will find you there.”

  He reached for her hand. “Miss Labrie?”

  “Yes, Isaac?”

  He leaned over, kissing her cheek. “Don’t get too close to the fire.”

  Smoke poured down K Street, curling between the empty buildings and abandoned wagons. Flames followed close behind the smoke, but unlike its predecessor, the flames showed no mercy. They devoured the wooden structures faster than Moby-Dick destroyed Ahab’s boat.

  A crowd of people watched the flames from the street, listening to buildings explode in the distance when barrels of gunpowder ignited. Victor pushed through the mob, rushing up one more block, his leather portfolio tucked safely under his arm.

  He’d walked the streets for far too long tonight, trying to find either the Golden Hotel or someone sober enough to give him accurate directions. It wasn’t until he’d found a man headed to fight the fire that he discovered the hotel was near the wharf. A brick-and-granite edifice in a long queue of wood.

  He gritted his teeth as he stared at the structure. The front door was shuttered with iron. He’d come so close to finding Mallie, and now it seemed like she’d escaped him once again.

  The smoke burned his throat. Stung his eyes. Lifting his loose shirt up over his mouth, he watched the fire in the distance, the flames casting a hazy glow through the curtain of smoke, the roar of destruction shaking the ground.

  He wouldn’t stop searching, for her or for Isaac. He would find them both after the fire subsided, and they would return to Virginia together, as a family, even if he had to shackle them together for the entire journey home.

  Oh, the rage in Eliza’s face when the three of them walked through the door. He’d triumph without saying a word.

  Heat radiated between the buildings, and the smoke almost drove him back toward the crowds. But then he saw her—an apparition in a cloud sustained by the fire. And he couldn’t move.

  He’d worried that Mallie might outgrow her beauty, but she was even more beautiful now than she’d been as a girl. And Mallie was his. He’d inherited her. Subdued and trained her. He would treat her as a lady. Eventually. First, she must be taught a swift lesson as a reminder: he owned her, for the rest of her life.

  As she held up her lantern, checking the iron shutters, he stepped toward her. But then she seemed to disappear into the smoke, along the back of the hotel.

  He smiled in spite of the heat. The alley was the perfect place to waylay her. No one in the crowd would see him take her. Or hear her scream.

  He moved swiftly into the alleyway, searching for her light. She may have outwitted him before, but he wouldn’t lose her now.

  Chapter 35

  Sacramento City

  July 1854

  Flames engulfed the planks on G Street, the roar of thunder echoing across town as buildings collapsed in on themselves, spraying a storm of embers across the stunned crowd. Alden pushed through hundreds of bystanders watching the destruction, trying to make his way up toward Isaac and Miss Labrie.

  He didn’t get far. As the volunteer firemen li
ned up on the streets, one of them asked him to help pull the heavy fire engine with its canvas buckets, leather hooks, and one-hose reel toward the flames. Alden grabbed one of the drag ropes and joined the men.

  Another crew fought the fire inside buildings with their axes, blowing their brass trumpets when they needed help. The rest of the volunteers pumped water through the engine’s hose or hauled up buckets of water from the river to douse flames. Shards of glass blew out from the rubble of saloons around them, liquor exploding in a turquoise blaze. The courthouse was consumed in minutes.

  As Alden worked alongside the firemen, he prayed that Miss Labrie and Isaac were safe in the cottage, that Stephan and Persila would find their way to freedom without complication, that the volunteers could contain the fire before it consumed this tinderbox of a town.

  As the first rays of dawn crept through the haze, Sacramento City was subdued into a fenland of smolder. The Golden Hotel was still standing, thanks to the swollen slats of iron on the windows and front door, but he couldn’t attest to its structure. The wooden buildings on both sides of the hotel were destroyed.

  Once the fire was contained, he hurried away from the wharf, following Stephan’s directions to the cottage far from the center of town. No one answered his first knock, but when he called out, Miss Labrie opened it. Her dress was covered with soot, her hair tangled in curls. In her arms, she clutched some sort of box.

  He glanced over her shoulder and saw a mound of canvas bags, but he didn’t see anyone in the room. “Is Isaac here?”

  “He’s asleep.”

  He sighed with relief, grateful they were both safe. “Is he okay?”

  She nodded.

  “Thank you for taking care of him.”

  He’d thought Miss Labrie was lovely the first time he’d seen her at the hotel, but she looked even more beautiful in the faint morning light, covered with the ashes from the fire, than she had looked in her tailored gowns, serving the elite of Sacramento. The fire, it seemed, refined both her strength and beauty.

  “Come inside,” she urged. “Quickly.”

  When he stepped into the sitting room, she slid the metal bolt behind him, locking the door. And the niggling thought haunted him again. He was almost certain that he’d seen her before, somewhere in years past, but it was as if his memory was veiled by smoke as well, like a dream that had faded away.

  She glanced toward the curtain drawn over the window. “Where is Stephan?”

  “He’s with Persila.”

  “Were you able to rescue her?”

  “We were.”

  “Thank God.” She collapsed onto the sofa, the wooden box secured in her lap. “I need to see Stephan this morning.”

  “I’m afraid he’s already gone.”

  “What do you mean, gone?”

  “He and Persila were able to board a paddle wheeler when the fire started.”

  She took a deep breath. “Are they traveling to Vancouver Island?”

  When he nodded, her shoulders fell. “I’m happy for them, but”—she looked down at the rug—“I wish I could have said good-bye.”

  “Stephan asked me to thank you for all that you’ve done. He said he intends to find a boy named Micah up north, and I have a suspicion that he intends to marry Persila too, if she’ll have him.”

  “I hope she will. He will treat her with honor and respect.” She smoothed her hands over the box. “I’m confused about one thing, Mr. Payne.”

  He sat in the chair across from her. “What is it?”

  “Are you or are you not Isaac’s owner?”

  He contemplated his words before he spoke. “I’m his guardian.”

  “Is he a freed slave?”

  He crossed his legs, leaning back against the stiff upholstery. “It’s a bit complicated.”

  “I don’t think freedom is complicated at all.”

  Miss Labrie was an advocate for slaves, and she was fond of Isaac. Perhaps it was time to tell her the truth.

  “Isaac isn’t free according to the law, but I figure that the law here doesn’t need that information.”

  “You don’t have his papers?”

  He shook his head.

  “Nor can he buy his freedom,” she said, seeming to speak more to herself than him.

  “He doesn’t owe me anything.”

  “A slave hunter could steal him away.”

  “No one here knows he’s run away,” Alden said. “As long as people think he’s my slave, he’ll be safe.”

  “You and I both need to stay in the shadows, then.”

  “Forgive me, Miss Labrie, but it doesn’t seem like you’ve been living in a shadow.”

  She gave him a shaky smile—the first time she’d ever smiled at him. “All is not as it seems, Mr. Payne.”

  He pointed toward the stack of bags. “Are those from the hotel?”

  She nodded. “I need to leave this morning.”

  “The Golden is still standing,” he told her. “If the structure is safe, Isaac and I can help you restore it.”

  “I’m not going back to the hotel.”

  He leaned toward her. “What’s wrong, Isabelle?”

  She didn’t correct him when he used her first name, didn’t even seem to notice that he’d said it. “There’s someone in Sacramento trying to harm me.”

  He pressed his hands together. “After today’s trial, you probably have many people angry at you.”

  “It’s more than that,” she said. “It’s someone from my past.”

  He could hear the fear in her voice, and he understood.

  She stood back up, clutching the box to her chest. “I’m going to purchase a stagecoach ticket.”

  “To where?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “You need someone to go with you.”

  She shook her head. “There’s no one—”

  “Isaac and I were thinking about going to Columbia,” he said.

  “To see Judah?”

  He nodded. “If he hasn’t moved on.”

  “I suppose I could go to Columbia too. For a season.”

  “How much, exactly, does a stagecoach ticket cost?” he asked.

  When she told him, he wanted to kick himself. Almost all his money was now in Mrs. Webb’s pockets. “I’m afraid Isaac and I will have to stay here after all.”

  She eyed him curiously before speaking. “I owe you and Isaac for your work at the hotel.”

  “We haven’t made nearly enough to purchase tickets.”

  “You can pay me the rest later.”

  He didn’t want to take a loan, yet he needed to find Judah. And if someone was trying to harm Isabelle, he could protect her as well.

  “I’ll find work in Columbia, whether or not it’s with Judah,” he said. “When does the stagecoach leave?”

  “At ten.”

  “If the hotel is still standing, I’ll have to retrieve my things.”

  There was strength in her smile this time. “Isaac carried your things here.”

  He returned her smile. “Perhaps he’s my guardian as well.”

  Part Three

  Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High

  will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.

  Psalm 91:1

  Chapter 36

  Sierra Foothills

  August 1854

  A flock of silvery birds crested beside their stagecoach and then glided back down toward a lake in the valley, the water glistening like gold in the afternoon sunlight. Yesterday, the stagecoach had rumbled across a plain composed of scrub oaks and channels of river. Then it began to climb up into the foothills west of the Sierra Nevada.

  The smoke from Sacramento’s fire was far behind them now, though they’d seen the black smoke from several camps in the hills. The trail of fire, their driver called this rock-studded road.

  In the distance, Isabelle could see the jagged Sierras, each peak still dusted with snow. The town of Columbia lay somewhere below these mountains,
at the edge of a wall that no stagecoach could climb.

  The indigo ripples beyond them reminded her of the sea billowing and crashing in a storm. It seemed impossible to travel through these foothills by coach, but as their party jostled up and down this narrow road, the two miners who’d joined them said they’d taken this route many times. They’d arrived safely to their destination each time—only once had they been robbed. They said this with pride, as if they’d somehow cheated fate.

  There was no Rodney out here in the wilderness to deter bandits from relieving stagecoaches of their gold, though the revolvers the two miners carried along with the driver’s double-barreled shotgun might send them running. While her luggage was belted onto the top of the coach, she’d packed the iron lockbox with her gold coins and Aunt Emeline’s gift in a valise made of tapestry and tucked it securely under her skirt.

  While Alden attempted to read a book on the bench beside her, Isaac’s nose was pressed against the dusty glass. This morning he’d watched the fog pooling on the valley floor, and once it lifted, he’d counted the clouds flitting past them in the wind. Now he was searching for bear or wildcats in the fir trees, neither of which she hoped he’d find.

  Outside her window were clusters of wild peas and blooms of mustard, weaving threads of lavender and yellow between the trees. For three years, she’d heard the stories about the mining towns from her guests, earning her living from people seeking the gold hidden in quartz veins at the base of the Sierras, but she’d never once visited the interior.

  What would it be like to live in this wilderness, so far from the elegance in her hotel?

  She never expected to leave Sacramento City, but now that Victor had found her trail, she could never go back to the place that had become home. An image of a bloodhound flashed into her mind, its tail curled up, droopy ears sweeping the ground.

  Victor could spend his days in the remains of the city if he wanted, his hunting nose to the ground, but he wouldn’t find her. She hadn’t left a trace of her whereabouts or even told Sing Ye where she had gone.

  Her one regret when they’d left was not saying good-bye to Sing Ye, but it wouldn’t take Victor long to knock on the cottage door. Better for Nicolas and Sing Ye to tell him that she’d simply disappeared.